Antara S | Volunteer Teacher

20+ years of Before & After! 🦋

I recently found old, faded photos from my 5th school - . It’s had been years since I had last looked at them. Incidentally, my parents were visiting. So we went through all the pics together.

Gradually, I realised that there we so many things I did back in the day that I got to experience again in 2025 - when I was invited as the Chief Guest at my alma mater.

And so I put this collection together. Mainly for myself, to be honest. So I can remember my life, my experiences, my journey, my befores and afters, and my glow up! 😂

Thank you once again BBVP and Ma’am! 🌻

Somewhere in these 10 years of classes, hurdles, home stays, celebrations, disappointments and conversations…our hearts became kinder, our laughs louder, our hugs tighter and our minds broader. 💛

Saplings turned into trees. 🌱🌳
Caterpillars turned into butterflies. 🦋
Raindrops turned into rainbows. 🌈

I chose a life-path that I personally don’t know anyone else around me choosing - to be biologically childfree, yet singlehanded become a mother, mentor, friend and educator to so many children through sewa. ✨

Somewhere while walking, running, falling, getting back up again and quietly tending to bruised knees and hearts - on this path less taken - just like the kids, I too grew up.🦋♥️✨

☀️ is a free STEM school that Dr. Anurup Mitra & I run for our (underprivileged) kids.

Happy Birthday to perhaps the only guy who thought marrying me would be a good idea!😄

It wasn’t a good idea.

It was an excellent one.

I mean…look at him glow!😆

Anurup can quote the Gita, Quran & Bible in his sleep. And stay awake all night talking about the latest in Artificial Intelligence.

He’ll tell you all about Monet, and then sit down to meditate - something he has been doing for the last 20 years.

He can make the meanest mutton curry, while sipping wine and explaining Machine Learning.

He can teach you OO programming concepts, and just as passionately explain the melodic structure of a raag.

He can play the tabla, sarod & flute like his fingers have magic, and then casually build a computer from scratch.

He volunteers every weekend to educate underprivileged children, and then comes home to 3D-print train models he designed himself.

He moves through yoga aasans with the same ease with which he tells me the latest in Electronics - a field in which he has a PhD.

And in between all of that, Dr. Mitra travels the world with me simply because I want to, while teaching me profanities in different languages!😁

Happy Birthday to the bestest person I know and who knows me best.❣️

Thank you for having my back every moment of everyday - so I can make mine & our dreams come true!

To atleast a billion more lifetimes with you!♥️

❤️

V - 1st in his family to pass Class 12 🎉

His parents and 3 elder siblings haven’t done Class 10.

V was the “rudest” kid I had met back in 2016, when I went to volunteer. He had such an attitude, and would bunk school for a month straight!

However, he hadn’t met someone as stubborn as me before. I went to his house multiple times. He returned to school and promised he would attend Sunday Class. And that’s a promise he kept.

During lockdown, his father took him to the village. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I called every 2-3 days for months and months - till he finally sent V back.

I then got V enrolled into school. But he bunked the first day!

I didn’t get angry.
I ask him if he was scared.

V: “Yes. I haven’t been to school in almost 2 years. I’m nervous.”

I said: “Don’t drink milk tomorrow morning. Drink Mountain Dew instead.”

V: “Huh?”

“Arre V, darr ke aage jeet hai!“

We laughed at my silly joke! 😄

But guess what?

V went to school the next day.

And continued to do so for the next 4 years.

He said he doesn’t like studying and hence this is very difficult for him, especially coming from a home where no one is educated.

Eventually however, V became the first in his bloodline to complete Class 12.♥️

We did it!! 🎉

Just to give you an idea of the background our kids come from - no one in his family said anything after his results came out. His marks aren’t great but he did something no one has ever done in their family before!! And yet there is no appreciation nor acknowledgement. Imagine how easy it would have been for him to give up.

But he didn’t.

Anurup, V and I together have changed his life!! 🥰

And hopefully, the lives of every generation that will come after V.✨

PS: He plans to enroll in college

☀️ is a free STEM school that Dr. Anurup Mitra & I run for our (underprivileged) kids.

Hey! I’m in a nostalgic little magazine!💚

Many of you may not know this, but I spent a part of my childhood in South Africa. 🇿🇦

It was the first time I experienced a world beyond what I was born into - new cultures, new perspectives and a new way of seeing life. I’m grateful to my parents, whose open-mindedness allowed me to live experiences they themselves had never had.❣️

It truly felt like a new world in the Rainbow Nation. Those years shaped who I am today. If you read my article in this magazine, you’ll get a glimpse of what I mean.💫

The Association of Bengalis of South Africa recently released this magazine, featuring my piece, along with a page dedicated to Sunday Class and The Pink Engine.💜

I never imagined that 25+ years later, people across the two countries I’ve grown up in - India and South Africa - would read my journey. 🌍🇮🇳🇿🇦

Not my babies.
But always my babies.💛

Naughty little boys who turned into wonderful young men in what is actually 10 years - but feels like a blink of an eye.💜

☀️ is a free educational STEM school that Dr. Anurup Mitra & I run for our (underprivileged) kids.



💙 💙 ❤️ ☀️